Frustrated at the government response, at the mis-information and propaganda surrounding the crisis, and at the few people taking advantage of the situation.
A few thoughts about the CoronaVirus pandemic:
It is serious: please follow the recommendations of the science community and health professionals. [Even though we Pastafarians are suspicious of “science”, better safe than sorry on this one.]
Pastafarian top tips for reducing the spread of the CoronaVirus:
Practice social distancing
Stay home if you can
Wash your hands
Dont excessively touch stranger’s faces and/or groins (the face of the pelvis)
Pirate-bandana can be used as a face-mask in a pinch but it is not ideal
Avoid social gatherings, yes even Church.
If I can shame a few reilgious leaders for a moment
I don’t want to talk shit about other religious leaders, and I’m not even saying most, or even many, religious groups are handling this crisis wrong … but some religious leaders are being so wildy irresponsible I’d like to mention them:
“Maybe you’d like to sow a $91 seed.” Here’s Paula White, head of the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, selling spiritual protections against the coronavirus.
Here’s TeleEvangelist Kenneth Copeland curing his viewers of the virus through the television. I can’t stress this enough: do not under any circumstances touch this man’s hands.
TV Pastor Jim Bakker says his Silver Solution elixer will cure you of the CoronaVirus. Looks like he may get in trouble for fraud (again) for this.
Here’s Jerry Falwell Jr on Fox & Friends pushing a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is a plot by the Chinese and North Koreans. Falwell was forced to shut down classes at his Liberty University when the Virginia governor limited crowd sizes.
“We’re raising up revivalists, not pansies”. Here’s a pastor encouraging people to shake hands.
Enought of that.
What should the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster do to help? Please send me suggestions here in the comments, twitter (@henderob) or email. Thanks!
[ Pastafarians wearing official religious headwear in parade, via reddit]
We’re looking for legal help in the Quebec area. I received this message from a longtime member and minister in Quebec:
I am a secondary school teacher living in Quebec, Canada. I am a Pastafarian. On March 28th, 2019 a bill was passed (bill 21) by the very racist and xenophobic provincial government presently in power. The bill prohibits people from wearing religious symbols in the workplace. It specifically applies to government workers, teachers, people in positions of authority or influence, etc.
While, on the surface, this may seem to be a secular move (something in line with Pastafarianism), the reality is that this bill disproprortionately affects religious minorities (muslims, jews) and also disproprotionately affects women. It also puts power in the hands of people who may have specific biases or agendas.
He started wearing a Colander at work around the time the bill was passed. His employer is attempting to force him to remove it under threat of disciplinary action. He has been issued a directive to remove the religious headwear and a threat of suspension or further escalation if he does not comply.
We are looking for help. Is there someone in the Quebec area that would be willing to provide legal advice and assistance? Please get in contact with me and I will forward the information. Thanks very much.
Update 2/25 — Wow this one is more controversial than I realized. More than a few “how dare you” type messages :) … I don’t know that much about this bill. I understand some view the bill as a step forward towards secularization of government, albeit imperfect. Others see it is as legislated racism.
I personally don’t have an issue with people wearing religious symbols/headwear in work, I suspect most Pastafarians don’t either. What we worry about is a religious person using a place of authority to push their beliefs on others, but it’s two separate things.
We just got in a bunch of these FSM vinyl car window decals. If you want one you can give me your address here. I only ask that you share the Pastafarian faith with people who inquire about “what is that sticker on your window?” They’re about 4″ across and can be stuck inside or outside the window.
Update 1/8 — stickers are almost gone so let me know soon if you want a few. Lots of people are asking to donate for shipping cost … thank you but not worried about it on these. Next batch maybe we’ll do a collection pot for the postage fund but definitely don’t want to sell these.
Gary Smith, fighting for equal rights. Photo Vancouver Sun.
The Vancouver Sun has a nice article about Pastafarian Gary Smith’s fight to have his driver’s license photo taken while wearing a Colander. He also dresses in Pirate Regalia for formal occasions, as do many serious Pastafarians.
His headgear, a colander, is part of his religion: Smith is a Pastafarian, a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
ICBC has informed him it doesn’t qualify as religious headgear, have refused to accept a photo of him wearing it for his licence, and Smith has now filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
“My religious head covering is an expression of my beliefs,” he said. “I am being denied the right to express myself in a manner afforded to members of other beliefs and other faiths . There is no test of faith that any government agency, including ICBC, can apply to judge whether or not a person earnestly believes what they profess when they ask to be photographed with a religious head covering.”
Canada is, surprisingly, not always tolerant of Pastafarian rights. British Columbia, especially. Besides not allowing us to wear religious headgear in government photos, they sometimes make it difficult for our Ministers to register as wedding officiants.
Vancouver is such a multi-cultural place, I find it difficult to understand the intolerance to religions outside of the mainstream. I’d love to hear if other “fringe” religious groups run into these problems with the BC government.
Big thanks to Mr. Smith for pushing back against religious intolerance. My feeling is that, even when we lose these fights from time to time, it helps in the long run to point out the inequality.
Just a reminder, the FSM Holiday e-Card machine is ready – you can send festive greetings to your friends and family here. Send as many as you like. Emails will be kept private.
There are a few designs available. This one below is probably the most controversial and also my favorite.
We heard a rumor that the Chinese Communist Party asked schools to report Pastafarian students. That’s very disturbing if true … If anyone has more information about this could you let us now? Thank you
Here’s what was reported in detail … looking for more info
Update —
It sounds like it may have been a misunderstanding. We’re hearing that schools are aware of the Pastafarian students but the students don’t feel too alarmed. Let’s hope it stays that way. Thanks for all of the messages.
“The question, however, is whether the courts — including a Supreme Court that has sometimes been very unsympathetic to minority religions — will allow these tactics to continue. Eventually, it is likely that a state or local government that’s targeted by Pastafarians or Satanists will bring a case all the way to the justices. And the Court’s current majority could be sympathetic to such a government.”
Have the courts had enough of our antics, and will they try to stop us by declaring us a definitely-not-legitimate religion? I don’t know. But in light of recent news (below), I’d like to share a few thoughts on the Church of FSM’s ongoing struggle for Official recognition and how that sometimes clashes with authority.
The Austrian courts rejected us :(
We’ve just heard that the Austrian courts ruled Pastafarianism will not be included in their list of Official state religions. This has been in the courts for years and, to be clear, the fight is not over — Pastafarians will appeal this decision with the European Court of Human Rights. But it was a disappointing result for Pastafarians everywhere. From the Austrian Pastafarian’s press release (translated from it’s original German):
The Federal Administrative Court has unequivocally established the existence of a religion, but withdrew in its dismissive recognition to the view that there was no sufficiently ” organized community ” of the more than 300 accredited members. Also “The essentially daily consumption of pasta and the ‘transcending’ of beer – due to the lack of specific religious references – did not constitute a rite. ”
Essentially the court said the Church of FSM is not legit because our community is too small, we meet online rather than in person, and when we do get together we’re drinking beer and eating Pasta. The Austrian Pastafarians in their press release point out the hypocrisy in that statment, considering Christians get together to ingest wine and wafers.
The fact that the consumption of dough flakes and alcoholic beverages in other religions is assessed as a rite without any problems, but that no “religious reference points” could be identified in the Pastafarian Transubstantiation, can be classified as authority arbitrariness in addition to several criticisms of the judgment of the Federal Administrative Court.
It’s not legitimate communion unless you can buy it in bulk.
But I wonder … if we had more in-person meetups, and if our communion looked (more) like what is recognized as a rite by the Christians – would the Austrian courts have viewed us as a legitimate religious group? I doubt it — it always feels the reasoning comes after the decision to exclude us.
Does winning matter?
As long as we don’t get discouraged, I’m not sure the losses matter much in the long run. This is public news, and each time an authority decrees that we’re not part of the Legit Religion Club, because of Reasons, there are a whole bunch of people who see that and think, wait, that’s bullshit, and our membership grows.
It’s true we’re not all True-Believers here. But as a group, I feel we are uncommonly sensitive to hypocrisy and injustice, and when we get discriminated against for what feels like arbitrary and capricious reasons, a lot of otherwise-casual Pastafarians are compelled to care more about our “fake” religion. That is, the very act of discrimination pushes our organization towards what can only be seen as legitimacy, in the long run.
The truth is, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in it’s most recent form[1], would not have lasted long without the continued insistence by authorities that ours is not a legitimate religion, that other groups can believe supernatural nonsense and sometimes be allowed extra privileges by government and institutions, but not our group — because 1, our supernatural nonsense sounds too out-there and 2, that maybe we don’t believe in that out-there supernatural nonsense enough for them to consider ours a legitimate religion.
Now, ten-plus years on, we have members – and practicing ministers – all over the world. We’re getting more organized and in every way more of a substantive real-world organization.
Where do we go from here?
My hope is that as we grow and become more organized, we don’t lose what made our group special. My favorite thing is to see a Pastafarian in the news doing something obnoxious and clever. If I had no idea it was coming beforehand, so much the better. I hope we never lose that spirit.
So far we’ve been able to avoid a lot of the problems of mainstream religion, I’d guess a lot of that is because we don’t fundraise, and don’t collect dues. I would like for us to find a way to build more physical churches, and put on more real-world activies and especially outreach to our communities. And, it would be nice to one day get the Pirate Ship and float around converting heathens and so forth. Maybe we’ll find a rich benefactor or someone will include the church in their will. F the relatives, put it all towards a pirate ship.
I would love to hear thoughts on the future of the church and thoughts about official recognition.
Footnotes
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster has existed for thousands of years in secrecy, only recently coming back into the mainstream.
I changed the old domain to a more recent one. All links to our old domain Venganza.org will still work but they’ll now be loaded from SpaghettiMonster.org . It’s still us, just maybe less confusing to people.
By the way, the original domain, Venganza, came from what I envisioned our Pirate Ship would be named.
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An elaborate spoof on Intelligent Design, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is neither too elaborate nor too spoofy to succeed in nailing the fallacies of ID. It's even wackier than Jonathan Swift's suggestion that the Irish eat their children as a way to keep them from being a burden, and it may offend just as many people, but Henderson puts satire to the same serious use that Swift did. Oh, yes, it is very funny. -- Scientific American.
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